Oh My God, Shoes.

From the very beginning, I knew I’d be wearing flats on our wedding day (despite a very fleeting lust for the Badgley Mischka Randall pumps). I do not ever wear heels—like, ever—because I cannot for the life of me find a pair that’s comfortable on my feet for longer than an hour, and I really don’t want to be limping around on W-Day, of all days. I also knew that, weather permitting (ohpleaseohplease), we’d be getting married outside in the grass, which is not ideal for stiletto heels.

Oh, and also, I wanted them to be blue (for my something blue, obviouslyyy) and leather or suede (I have a mysterious aversion to satin shoes). Ideally, I also wanted them to be something I would wear again after the wedding.

Those criteria are surprisingly hard to meet, but I did have some early contenders:

I LOVED the French Connection Bridgit, but sadly, it’s discontinued (womp womp wommmp) and pretty much impossible to find in my size.

Hey Lady makes their shoes—including these Smittens—to be extra-supportive and comfy.

And then suddenly, in the middle of my shoe search, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

A little backstory, here: towards the end of 2013, before we got engaged, one of my coworkers told me about Tieks. She raved about them, actually, and said they were super-comfortable and that she owned several pairs. In case you haven’t heard about them, Tieks is a small company based in California that hand-makes foldable leather flats. They’re known across the Internet as being very comfy, extremely well-made, and with great customer service (and, so I hear, an awesome replacement policy if you manage to wear yours out). However, at almost $200 a pair, they were about four times as expensive as what I’d normally spend on an everyday pair of shoes, so at the time, I (mostly) shrugged them off and moved on.

And then, on my hunt for blue, leather shoes, I remembered what else Tieks are known for:

Blue soles! (These are their cream version, FYI.) This meant that I could pick pretty much any color Tieks I wanted and they’d still qualify as my something blue! And, since I’d already been eyeing them before we got engaged, I knew I’d want to wear them over and over again after our wedding. They were too expensive to buy “just because,” but what better time to splurge (within reason) on shoes but for our wedding?

I didn’t need any other excuses. I bought a pair, stat.

There’s the blue peeking out!

Please excuse the smudge on the sole. I have no idea where it came from, considering this was my first time wearing them outside the apartment. Apparently there’s no avoiding the mess with me.

The verdict? I. Love. Them. I picked gold because it was just a little bit special (with a very nice sheen in the light that you can sort of see in the first picture), but still neutral enough to wear with pretty much anything post-wedding. The split sole makes them both easy to fold up and pack and very flexible and comfortable when they’re on my feet. And the customer service really is great-when my first pair felt a little too big, they sent me another pair a size down without charging me anything extra so that I could compare them and return the one that didn’t fit.

Are they the fanciest, most glamorous wedding shoes in the world? Nah. But they fit all my criteria, won’t make my feet hurt halfway through the night, and I will wear the crap out of them, starting on our honeymoon. And I’m positive I’ll wear them enough and that they’ll last long enough (especially with the replacement policy) that my price per wear will be lower than a $15 pair of heels would be for me.

Now, I just have to figure out how to make our wedding justify purchasing a pair of Frye boots…

Have you guys used your wedding as an excuse to buy something you’ve been lusting after? What did you end up picking for your wedding shoes? Did you go practical or all-out?

comments

@walrus, thank you! I’m kind of surprised I hadn’t heard of Tieks before, it seems like I’m running into all these people now who love them!

@MrsMayaBee, thanks for the encouragement–hearing that that justification works for other people definitely makes me feel better about the splurge 😉

@misspenny2010, that’s so awesome that they’re comfortable! I’ve tried lower heels before, and unfortunately, I’m such a wuss about heels that I was still in pain by the end of the day, ha! Plus, I think the low heels would still sink into the grass at our ceremony. For now, I’ll just admire them from afar on lovely brides like you!

@tractor, that’s amazing. I’ve never heard of Instagram as a source for secondhand–I’ll have to add it to my hunt list!

@msnarwhalbee, ugh, good luck! I feel like there are almost too many options out there. So overwhelming.

@mswallaby, ha, that’s awesome! Should I make a “sole mates” pun here or nah?

@pyramid, thank you! And hey, you could still buy your own pair for post-wedding wear 😉

@bracelet, I’d highly recommend them! Especially if you wear flats a lot, I think they’re definitely a good investment.

@milkcow, thank you! Yeah, I have a feeling that the adrenaline would probably keep me from noticing the pain on the actual day of the wedding, but we’ll be doing a lot of walking on our honeymoon and I don’t want to start off with blisters!

@kabatchy2be, that’s awesome! You’ll have to let me know what you think!